Sexcuse meBut whatta good is all ze violence in ze worldUnless it is templedWith limitless sexBring on the limitless sex objectsAnd now please SexecutionerGenius to sexplainThe seriousness of the subjectsAnd now if you will attend my WordYou'll seeI am a naughty fellowIn fact I'm certainly notToo very mellowI've come to this placeTo rearrange your faceLalalalalalalalaSexcellent!LalalalalalalalaHahahahahahahaOhlalalalalalalalaSexcuse meLalalalalalalalaHahahahahahahaOooohohohohohohohohohohooooooSo if you think you're very smartThat you know many wordsAll you need to knowFor the rest of your lifeIsSexecutionerSexecutionerI'm sexecuting youSexecutionerSexecutionerLalalalalalalala?LalalalalalalalaHahahahahahahaOhlalalalalalalalaSexcuse meLalalalalalalalaOooohohohohohohohohohohooooooNow after me"I am from France" - He is from France"And when you are in France you pull down your pants" - You pull down your pants"And when you're on your knees you'll do as I please" - When you're on your knees - You do as he pleasesBend over!Bend over!?Give to me the genital wartsGive to me the golden showerGive to me the spiked dead doggy terrorGive to me the doggy do smell cardSexcellent!Nothing sexceedsSextenceNow what is my name?SexecutionerSexecutionerI'm sexecuting youSexecutionerSexecutionerLalalalalalalala?LalalalalalalalaHahahahahahahaOhlalalalalalalalaSexcuse meLalalalalalalalaOooohohohohohohohohohohooooooMAGNIFICENT!?

"Sexecutioner" Gwar song lyrics analysed with considerable assistance of Spaz

"LODE RUNNER" BY BRØDERBUND - SOFTWARE REVIEW by Richard Karsmakers

Approximately two years ago, don't ask me why, some kind ofreally ridiculous rumour was getting known throughout the STsociety (at least the part I happened to roam in). The rumour wasthe following: The American company Brøderbund was supposed to bedoing some of their highly popular 8-bit games on 16-bitmachines. Titles included "Karateka", "Raid on Bungeling Bay","Spelunker", "Whistler's Brothers", "Stealth" and...."LodeRunner". They were also doing a game called "Typhoon Thompson",done by the rather infamous author of the early 8-bit hit"Choplifter" (aah....1984...those were the days, weren't they?). Anyway. Apart from "Typhoon Thompson", a nice game indeed, nothingturned out to have been true about this rumour. So I miserablywhined away in some kind of dark and silent corner, sad becauseof the fact that the best 8-bit game ever ("Lode Runner", thatis) would never be done on 16-bit computers.

Then it suddenly happened. Just like that. Completely out of the blue, as it were (which it was).

A screenshot of an ST version of "Lode Runner" appeared in aFrench magazine. And an advertisement claiming that it would be for sale soon(though we all know what 'soon' means in the world of software)on Atari ST, Amiga (bwaarghhh) and MS-DOS (even more bwaarrgghh). I stood for about ten seconds (maybe more), totally andbraingrindingly flummoxed. This could not be true. I pinched myself. It ached. I wasn't dreaming, apparently. "Lode Runner" was now really going to be done on the ST. Somewhat later, a review of "Lode Runner" appeared in anotherFrench magazine. That was it. Drooling, and desperate brushing upthe couple of French words I knew, I started calling like I wasbeing haunted by the Telephone Service itself.

About a month later, I actually got it. I still couldn't reallybelieve it. "Lode Runner" on the ST. The good thing about it was that it would not be done on Amigaand PC after all. The bad thing was that it was only sold inFrance and therefore entirely conceived in French. As it turnedout, Brøderbund was not satisfied with the way the French companyLoriciels had converted it, and had therefore decided to restrictthe launch to the French ST version, and only sell the thing inFrance. So far the story. What about a review?

First, I'd like to tell you what "Lode Runner" is (for thoseamong you who are so mindnumbingly pathetic not to know). It's a platform game with floors and ladders, and you have tocollect treasures whilst avoiding to be touched by the enemiesthat walk over the platforms, too. There can be one to fourenemies, and they are all the same: Simply copies of yourself ina different colour. To defend yourself against them, you had the possibility to makeholes in the platforms directly to the left or the right of you.The enemies would drop in it (climbing out after a while), andyou could drop through it. Once all items were collected, you could proceed to the nextlevel. The original "Lode Runner" had 150 levels. Its follow-upon 8-bit, "Championship Lode Runner", had only 50 levels butthese were extremely hard and you could win an award if youcompleted them.

Many people - even most people I know - think the ST version of"Lode Runner" is either 'shit', 'crap', 'bad', or another coupleof words along this line. I entirely disagree. Though not perfect, "Lode Runner" is very close to the 8-bitoriginal, and is almost infinitely close to the originalplayability. But something has gone slightly wrong during the process of whatcould have been the most brilliant game on the ST, too. These things were, in order of importance: A: Lousy programming. It's rather difficult to make a maximum of5 shapes of 8 by 8 pixels move in THREE Vertical Blanks, but theLoriciels programmers did it. Wow. B: All sound effects are digital. Only slows down and eatsprocessor time. C: Lousy graphics. Instead of just walls, ladders and treasurechests, they have the weirdest kind of walls and the strangestthings you have to collect (dollar signs even, and bloodyChristmas trees!). They should have stuck to the original thing. D: Not quite perfect joystick command interception. Sometimes,you simply can't make a hole quickly enough whereas the 8-bitversions were more responsive there.

You see. Not quite an excellent curriculum vitae of the 16-bitversion of a game that was to be the first to be afterwardsconverted to an arcade hall machine (usually, it is the other wayaround - due to which fact U.S. Gold and Ocean grew terrifyinglyrich and powerful). Yet I still say that it's pretty brilliant. So there must bereasons for that as well. And there are: A: The opponent strategy is, as far as I have been able to see,100% identical to that of the 8-bit versions. Bloody ingenious! B: The joystick response is good enough for the game to be veryplayable. It could have been better, but it's close enough tobeing good enough (if you know what I mean). C: It's still got the good old 'magic ingredient' that made theold version a hit. I couldn't possible start to explain what Ithink it may be, as I totally don't. D: It saves hiscores. I simply lllllove that.

So I still think "Lode Runner" is a classic, also on the ST.It's a grave pity, however, that it might just as well have beena mega-giga-zillio-classic if the programmer's would have beenonly slightly more capable (I almost start to cry at the thoughtof what it could have been like when programmed e.g. by thepeople at Thalion), and if they would have limited themselves tojust making a somewhat better version of the original. Still, you should go and buy it. You will only be slightlydisappointed if you were a real 8-bit "Lode Runner" freak.

Oh. I almost forgot to mention that the 16-bit version alsoincludes the editor of the old one. It is, as could have beenexpected, mouse-driven and this is probably the only thing thathas been improved.

Disclaimer
The text of the articles is identical to the originals like they appeared
in old ST NEWS issues. Please take into consideration that the author(s)
was (were) a lot younger and less responsible back then. So bad jokes,
bad English, youthful arrogance, insults, bravura, over-crediting and
tastelessness should be taken with at least a grain of salt. Any contact
and/or payment information, as well as deadlines/release dates of any
kind should be regarded as outdated. Due to the fact that these pages are
not actually contained in an Atari executable here, references to scroll
texts, featured demo screens and hidden articles may also be irrelevant.